


Fallen Angel

by pilotsirens



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Real World, Angel!Keith, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety Attacks, Bilingual Lance (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Cuban Lance (Voltron), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, Guardian Angels, Human!Lance, Insecure Keith (Voltron), Insecure Lance (Voltron), Keith & Shiro (Voltron) are Adoptive Siblings, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Minor Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Minor Hunk/Shay (Voltron), Protective Keith (Voltron), Rivalry, lance plays theater, non-binary Pidge, pidge and hunk are the nerd team you didn't know you needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-05-04 21:08:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14601735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pilotsirens/pseuds/pilotsirens
Summary: When a man dies, he is sent to Heaven, where he is to live a peaceful afterlife as an angel. But as in every other places, there are rules in Heaven, and when Keith, a young angel, breaks the most important one, he is sentenced to be exiled on Earth to be the Guardian Angel of a young boy named Lance McClain, which is not to make him pleased.





	1. The angel's judgment

**Author's Note:**

> hi everyone ! this is my first klance fiction in english, and it is a translation of my story "Paradis", published on Wattpad in french since november 2017.  
> it is a story which is important for me, so i hope you'll like it!  
> since english is not my first language, there may be a few errors sometimes and i'm sorry about that, please feel free to correct me!
> 
> enjoy !

The room was huge.

Keith, who was chained up in the highest row, had a splendid view of the famous room whose he had been hearing about since forever. 

The Archangel Court.

In itself, the room didn't look like much. It was a simple semi-circular amphitheatre, immaculately white, with all the rows of seats converging towards a point, the magistrate's platform. There were no windows, but the ceiling was pierced in its centre and let in a stream of light that fell right on the only touch of colour present: the condemned man's seat, a blood-red armchair set with chains as transparent as crystal but as solid as steel. That's where Keith was held captive, securely tied. Opposite him, on the back wall, the motto of the Tribunal was written in untied letters. Errare humanum est, to err is human. A subtle reminder that humans were allowed to make mistakes, but angels were not. 

In this room, mythical trials had taken place, masterly assemblies had been held, historical decisions had been taken. It was in this same room that thousands of years earlier, Lucifer had been deposed from his place as an angel and sent to the underworld. It was in this same room that, much later, Gabriel had been tried for appearing to a mortal. Anyone who committed a major crime would end up here. The immaculate walls had seen the worst criminals march between their solid frames. The first thing we taught children when they were growing up was not to do anything stupid or they would end up in court. The threat worked as effectively as that of being sent to Hell, perhaps even better, because the reality of the Tribunal was much more tangible than that of being with Satan. The name alone was enough to frighten and inspire respect. When an angel was sent to court, he rarely came out. That didn't necessarily mean he was dead; it was rarely the case. Generally, divine punishments were rather intended to educate the angel so that he would not repeat his errors. For this purpose, the Judges used rather persuasive methods, the extremes of which were exile on Earth and a stay in the Fields of Punishment. Both perspectives were rarely applied. In the entire history of the Tribunal, which had existed for more than two thousand years, only eighteen angels had been so severely condemned. There was therefore very little chance of such a serious sentence. But Keith had no doubt about what would happen to him: his actions were too serious for him to get away with simple works, like serving an Archangel. He didn't know if he was going to face the death penalty, but what was certain was that he was going to live the worst years of his life. An entire part of his existence was to be devoted to erasing another part of his existence. Life would go on without him, and people would eventually forget him. He was trying to convince himself he didn't care. After all, he didn't have many friends here, being more of a loner type. He did not like to talk and hated all forms of communication, verbal or physical. But he couldn't lie to himself. He ended up becoming attached to some people, like Nina, his six-year-old neighbour, or Daniela, a Hispanic mother in her forties who came to chat regularly. He was gonna miss them. And, above all, he would miss flying. He loved the feeling of spreading his wings, the wind in his hair. He loved the illusory freedom of flight, climbing up into the air, swooping down, and then, at the last moment, climbing back up. In flight, he had no explanations to give.

But he deliberately chose to separate himself from all that by committing his crime. He knew what was involved when he made his decision. He couldn't go back and regret it afterwards. He did not make the decision lightly. He had thought about it for weeks and weeks, torturing himself for whole nights, waking up soaked in sweat. 

He knew his nightmares weren't normal. An angel didn't have nightmares. This reinforced his belief that he was out of place. He had never belonged here.

Since the trial still hadn't started, Keith began to play with the chains that were blocking his wrists. If he didn't pay attention, he almost forgot he was wearing them. They were extremely light and blended into the landscape. But if they were pulled to their maximum, they sent painful discharges to their carrier. Keith wondered if it was the will of the Archangels to make people believe in freedom so that they could tear it off better afterwards.

Because he was bored and always wanted to go beyond the limits, he raised his arm as high as he could. Immediately, a bolt of lightning passed through him, making him scream. It hurt a lot more than he thought and it took him a few minutes to catch his breath. Strangely enough, he felt the adrenaline invade him, as if his body was challenging him. Gasping, he gave himself a break before repeating the operation. This time he welcomed the pain more calmly, still letting a moan escape when the discharge reached his heart. Then he did it again and again. He didn't know why he was doing it. He didn't want to think. He didn't want to think about his life, or what he was going to become. He wanted to forget even his existence, and the pain was life-saving. Every flash made him suffer horribly, but in a sense, the pain freed him from what he wanted to escape. He didn't want to live anymore. He didn't have the strength to. He thought that, perhaps, it was all he deserved: suffering, until the end of time.

-Prisoner 232! barked a voice suddendly, interrupting Keith's torment.

The young man looked up. He was covered in sweat, trembling, and his breathing was chopped. Every nerve in his body still resounded with pain. Opposite him, an angel dressed in purple went up the stairs that split the bleachers in two, looking furious. Keith recognized Judge Aradim, the angel of order and regularity. He had only seen him briefly at the time of his arrest, but he was clearly recognizable. His short brown hair caramels beat his temples with each step he took and on his dress stretched two parallel straight lines: his divine symbol. He quickly reached Keith's level. With a gesture of the hand, he made a blue halo appear, which covered the young man a few seconds before disappearing. Keith tried to move, but his body wouldn't respond. His legs and arms were completely paralyzed. He raised his head, preparing to protest, and saw Aradim chanting a verse of the Angelus, then opening his eyes completely purple.

-Have you lost your mind? roared the judge, scarier than ever. Do you have any idea what you were doing? 

Now that Keith was no longer under the influence of adrenaline, the pain was cutting through his body, relentless and destructive. He held back a grimace with great difficulty and continued to stare at the angel, panting. 

-Pain is salutary, isn't it? 

He could have announced that he wanted to join Satan that Aradim would not have been less shocked. The angel of the order opened his eyes and contracted his jaw.

-I see that despite everything we have tried to educate you, you remain the same. Your fate will not be tender, prisoner. 

Keith didn't even bother to answer him. He already knew all that. He knew the consequences. He was ready for anything. He just let his head fall on his chest, his hair masking his face. He was tired of everything.

Aradim was watching him, disapproving. He hated it when a member of the community did that. This kind of behaviour necessarily caused disorder in order, and he hated disorder. He liked everything clean, tidy, perfect. Rebels were rare, but when there were some, it always gave rise to chaotic situations, and it bristled his hair. For five centuries, nothing had happened, and again someone was not in the ranks! He would have liked to have had some rest. 

With a sigh, he began to descend the stairs to the stage. In front of him, the motto of the Tribunal sparkled. Errare humanum est. He still remembered the day, five thousand years earlier, when Archangel Michael had condemned Lucifer. It was the first time an angel had been guilty of such atrocious acts. Because yes, before he fell, Lucifer had been an angel. And before he was an angel, he had been human. After he was sent to Hell, the Archangel had decided that this sentence would be placed prominently on the wall of the Tribunal, to remind every angel that humans could fail, for they were weak beings, but never angels. Lucifer had made a mistake. In the Archangel's eyes, it was his human nature that was at issue, and he had transmitted this conviction to his successors. 

Aradim stepped forward to the table in the centre of the stage. Seven chairs, each struck with a gold symbol, were aligned behind. In a short time, these chairs would welcome the Seven Archangels, Priests of the Angelus. Aradim was not one of them, but his place was right next door, behind a desk from where he would pronounce the sentence. Opposed to him, at the other end of the stage, would stand Geburah, the angel of justice. Between the two of them, they had to succeed in pronouncing a correct sentence. Actually, the Archangels were not necessarily necessary to the process. Their presence was simply to impress. The audience was open to all, but few angels decided to go. Seeing one of their peers get convicted wasn't an easy show. Even relatives didn't necessarily show up. Thus, most of the time, only members of the militia attended the trial.

-Aradim ! 

The angel of the order raised his head. Geburah had just burst into the amphitheatre, his burgundy dress slamming at every step. On his chest was a scale, sewn in golden threads: his symbol. 

-Did you ring the bell? The trial is about to begin. 

Shaking his head negatively, Aradim was about to go there when the recognizable sound of the bell rang in the room. Immediately, he felt a feeling of calm spreading through him. There was something reassuring, familiar in that noise. The brief panic that had seized him because of Keith was now fading. The trial was going to go well. Everything was going to be all right. He was happy. He liked nothing more than order. 

With pleasure, he saw the ceiling light up, and seven silhouettes with huge wings descended from it. He bowed respectfully to them. The Archangels each stood in front of their seats, and the light faded. 

-Rise up, brothers, began the Archangel in the centre, the most powerful of all. 

His voice resounded deep and loud in the amphitheatre. He was simply dressed in a white alb, but it illuminated the room gently, highlighting his chocolate skin and golden hair. 

-Archangel Saint Michael, murmured Geburah, his head still down, his voice trembling. May peace reign in you.

-And may she accompany you on the path of perfection, smiled Michel, in response to the ritual salvation of the angels. I see you're ready already. I suggest we get this over with as soon as possible. 

He clapped his hands, and instantly a flock of angels dressed in golden breastplates appeared from all sides. Keith, from where he was, felt like he was watching a shower of gold feathers. The spectacle was magical, though frightening, as the newly arrived angels looked fierce and all held a spear in their right hand. They unfolded, forming a circle around the condemned man's chair, sitting on the bleachers, gradually filling the room. When he stopped coming, there must have been a hundred of them sitting on the benches.

Keith recognized them for dealing with them less than a dozen hours before. Militia, special guard. They were responsible for arresting criminals and ensuring the security of the kingdom, but were not very active, given the low crime rate in Elyseum. Despite everything, they were impressive, their inactivity not taking away their prestige. All wore a short white alb, similar to the chitons Greeks were wearing in antiquity, tight at the waist by a brown strap, as well as sandals laced up to their knees. Over their clothes, their golden breastplates sparkled, struck with the Militia motif: two wings of angels intertwined with two spears. Their hair, of varying length and colour, was gathered under a helmet, also golden. They stood upright, holding their weapons in their right hands, their eyes fixed on a point somewhere in front of them. They inspired respect, strength, order. Keith had heard a lot about them since he arrived at the Elysium, but he hadn't had to see them until the day before, and actually he would have preferred not to.

-Angels! Saint Michael thundered, and Keith winced under the power of his voice. He was still stunned by his previous experiences with the handcuffs, and a horrible migraine was twisting his skull.

In the same movement, the members of the Militia bowed. They were the only ones in the stands. Keith felt a pinch in his heart when he realized that neither Nina nor Daniela would witness his conviction. He had not expected them to come, for it was a trial, and the angels rarely attended, but.... Still. He still had that little hint of hope deep inside him. The hope that he might see them one last time before being thrown into hell.

-Get up! Get up! ordered the Archangel. May peace reign in you!

He put his right hand on the left side of his chest, where his heart should have beaten if he had not been an angel.

-Let her accompany you on the path of perfection, the guards chanted as they stood up.

-We are gathered here today for the trial of one of our neutral angels, Kezech. Condemned, get up!

Keith felt his his blood turn to ice as he heard his angel's name. He hadn't been called that in a long time. When he arrived, he had received his angelic name, like any newcomer, but Nina had nicknamed him Keith almost immediately. In a funny way, it was because of this name that he was here. Normally, for an angel, a name was something extremely important. This was what later allowed access to the higher ranks, adding different particles. Denying him was not insignificant. It was further proof, if any were needed, that he didn't belong in the Elysium.

Looking straight, refusing to lower his head despite the pain that twisted his neck, he got up. His body was imperceptibly shaking under the effort it required. The forced paralysis to which he had been subjected had numbed his muscles, and it seemed to him that each of his nerves was buzzing unpleasantly. But he stood firm and remained proud, no matter what. 

-Aradim, you will read the charges against the defendant.

Strangely, the Archangel's words reached Keith as if through a thick fog. It seemed to him that the world around him was beginning to blur imperceptibly. Despite his upright posture, he was overwhelmed by a nauseous feeling that made him want to roll in a ball on the ground. He put this on the back of the handcuffs and breathed quickly to try to dispel the unpleasant sensation. But the more he tried to feel better, the more his discomfort increased. Was it due to the noxious fumes emitted by the spears of the guards? He knew they were sprayed with poison to better capture criminals, but in this case, why was he the only one affected? Maybe they were immune... 

Because of the constant buzzing in his ears, he couldn't hear the list of crimes he was accused of, but he didn't care. He knew what he'd done. All he wanted right now was to roll around in a ball under his duvet and never have to leave it again. He thought bitterly of this place called paradise, which really had nothing to do with the captivating legends told on earth. A beautiful place where everyone lived happily ever after? If this was heaven, then he didn't want it. He just wanted to die and never wake up again, either on Earth or here. 

As his eyelids grew heavier and heavier, reducing his vision to shapeless white silhouettes, he vaguely heard the judges deliberate. Their discussion seemed lively. He was probably giving them a hard time. He smiled at the idea. He appreciated the idea of putting obstacles in their way until the last moment. He had always been the minor glitch, the disruptive element they had never managed to control. This thought reassured him somehow. It was reassuring to feel at peace with yourself before leaving the world. At least he had lived to the end faithful to what he had always been: the lone wolf, the stranger of the system, the marginal. No one had ever understood it, and no one had ever tried to understand it. To realize this calmed a little the panic of his heart.

I've always been alone. I started alone, I'd end up alone, but at least it will end. I just want it to stop.

-Kezech! 

The powerful voice of the Archangel disturbed the state of near-sleeplessness in which Keith was plunged. Stunned, he made a superhuman effort and concentrated his last forces to listen to his punishment.

-For your crimes stated earlier, which constitute a breach of the fundamental rules of the Angels, the council has decided! 

He cleared his throat, unrolled a scroll and thundered:

-The angel Kezech, the 9 097 386 560th Angel arrived at the Elysium, is, on this day of the sixth Creation, condemned by the Seven Priests of the Angelus to exile on Earth, where he will have to ensure the custody of a human during one year, without possibility of contacting the Elysium or any other kingdom of the Hexagonal Alliance. His wings and powers will be restored only if he proves worthy. 

He hit the ground with his right hand and a huge star hole opened in the ground. 

Keith suddenly lost his insurance. He'd considered everything but that. Becoming a guardian angel scared him less than having to live another year. He just wanted to disappear, and he was still being denied that deliverance?

Grabbed by the closest guards, he saw the hole getting closer and closer. Now that the fateful moment was so close, he was not sure of anything. He didn't want to come down to Earth. How could he provide security and happiness for a human when he was unable to do so for himself? 

Once hung over the gate, the guard by her side, whose golden eyes stood out on her dark skin, asked him for his last words. Despite his fear, he did not have to think.

-I regret nothing. 

The young woman's golden eyes were the last vision he had of the Elysium before plunging into the void.


	2. First impression

Lance didn't mean to throw the fire extinguisher out of the window. It just sort of ...happened. He had it in his hands, and then the next moment he was watching it crash into the concrete floor of the school. Was it really necessary to make such a fuss about it it? It was just a careless mistake (and poor weight discernment, but how could Lance have known a fire extinguisher weighed so much?). Either way, not enough to summon him into the director's office as if it was the most serious fault in the history of the Garrison. It was too late to stop the students from getting into a giant foam battle, judging by the sight through the window. So he could walk away, right? 

Obviously, the principal didn't agree. Frowning, jaw tight, he looked at Lance as if he hoped to succeed in disintegrating him with his eyes. The young man swallowed, uncomfortable. At least two minutes had passed since his arrival, dragged by force by the angry truante officer, and Mr Iverson had still not said a word. Lance did not dare look away from him, although he would have preferred to watch his friends in the courtyard. After all, it was thanks to him that they could have so much fun, right ? He deserved better than sitting there, like a condemned man at the gallows, with a rope around his neck, waiting for the hatch to open. 

-Lance McClain.

In spite of himself, he jumped. That's it, the hatch had opened. And what was inside was apparently not good. 

-Yes, Mr. Iverson? 

The principal sighed, as if being here to punish a student was a particularly difficult ordeal, even if his whole body announced you-will-die-in-atrocious-sufferings-and I-will-take-pleasure-at-inflicting-you-said-sufferings as clearly as if he had carried those words printed on his forehead. Lance could practically see devil's horns blinking over his filthy greasy hair.

-McClain, you are one of our best men here at the Garrison, began the principal in a sweet voice, too calm not to smother a storm. You are motivated, involved, not without a certain talent for activities like archery...

Lance was waiting for the "but" that would not fail to come and ruin the whole thing. He had never hear those words adressed to him. If he hadn't been responsible for such a mess in the high school, he could almost have felt flattered. Almost.

-But...

The director stood up, extending his long body like a threatening shadow, now dominating Lance. He came closer and closer until his little pig eyes met the bright blue eyes of the young man.

-YOUR BEHAVIOR IS UNACCEPTABLE! 

His sudden rise of tone twisted Lance's brain and he instinctively backed off. 

-You are the most irresponsible and hotheaded of our students! And I run a center for troubled kids like you, so I've met a few in my whole carrier !

With a raging gesture, the director opened one of his drawers and rummaged inside. He took out several school year group photos, which according to their look dated at least of the 80s. He pointed at one of the students on the first picture, who had curly brown hair. 

-Sammy Valdez! A hell of an hothead, that one. And yet, I never saw him flood the teachers' bathroom! And he, Keith Kogane! His couldn't-give-a-damn attitude was getting on my nerves, but he never took the liberty of stealing one of the school scooters to go see his girlfriend, skipping school at the same time!

Lance bit his cheek not to burst out laughing at the mention of his past exploits. The toilet incident was pretty funny. If he had to do it again, he wouldn't hesitate. But the next sentence suddenly cut off his desire to laugh. Iverson had come closer again, his hands on his desk, and articulated carefully, which was even scarier than when he shouted :

-McClain, I've been patient. I agreed to take you here despite your rather... Tumultuous past. I chose to forget about your past escapades so you could start over. I have offered you the possibility of a new future. You had all the cards in hand to access the future of your dreams, but you threw them into the fire one after the other. I'm very disappointed. You disappointed me, McClain. And what will your family say? Your mother placed so much hope in you...

Lance was beginning to realize one thing: the director was not only terrifying by the power of his voice or the fame of his outbursts of anger. He was terrifying with his ruse. He was terrifying by his prodigious ability to put his finger where it hurt.   
At the Garrison, a high school for troubled youth in the heart of Oklahoma, Iverson was a legend. Nicknamed "The Bull" by the students, he had indeed a tendency to rush before thinking, and did not spare the most sensitive students. Sometimes it was hard to imagine that a man like that had ever wanted to become a teacher. He had no pedagogy and no patience. It was probably for this reason that he had landed at the Garrison: while he lacked empathy, he was strict and well respected: two essential points to work in a centre for troubled kids. He had started as a sports teacher, and had been promoted to head the school a few years later, thus ensuring the direction of an iron hand. Pidge, one of Lance's best friends, was spending most of their time developing theories about his true nature, the most recent being that he was actually an super villain alien whose goal was to annihilate the Earth by posing as a human, but that he had failed to reproduce normal DNA and mixed it with a bull and a brown bear one. 

Lance had heard many adjectives being used to describe it. Bad. Irritable. Angry. But never, never cunning.

And yet, he had understood that threats and screams didn't work on Lance. He had understood that no matter how many hours of detention he could give him, no matter how much community service he would have to do, Lance would continue to smile. He had understood that the most effective way to hurt the young man was to make him feel guilty. By striking him back and forth that he would never achieve the only two goals of his life: becoming an astronaut, and making his family happy. And he was right: Iverson's chewy voice broke Lance's heart far more than any restraint could have done. Suddenly, none of his jokes seemed funny to him anymore. A feeling of guilt twisted his guts, bringing out his family's smiles like flashbacks before he flew to the United States. The words of the director infiltrated his skin like a sneaky poison, and he saw his mother leaning over him again, he heard like an echo the last advice she had given him. She told him to make her proud. She told him she wanted him to succeed. She and her father had invested a lot of money in his education, and he felt like he was throwing away their savings. 

Lance's family had always had financial difficulties. They were five children, and their father being the only one to work, their income was not sufficient to provide them with sufficient economic comfort. Thus, they had never really been able to afford to make beautiful trips or buy branded clothes. But despite their rationing, Lance's parents made it a point of honour to support their children in their studies, no matter how expensive they were. They wanted them to have access to the future of their dreams and then being able to offer a better life to their kids. Although Lance argued that there could never be better parents than them, they felt guilty that they could not compete with the wealth of their friends. Lance's two older sisters had both gone to medical school, and the family's crates had taken a hit. But their parents had still looked for their smallest savings, put all their efforts so that Lance could also realize his dream of becoming an astronaut, or at least work in relation to space. 

Lance had failed his first school competitive exam after two years of preparation. He had then tried another university. Because he liked to joke in class, he didn't necessarily take the exercises seriously, and his repeated disobedience had finally got the better of him. He had been expelled, which had led him to the Garrison, a centre for young people considered "troubled", in other words, those whom the other schools did not want. Lance was not really a troubled kid, in the original sense of the word. He just had an unfortunate tendency to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, as well as ADHD that caused not to be able to follow a normal course. But the Garrison was his last chance. He no longer wanted to force his parents to spend their money. They had already done too much for him. He had to stay here, no matter what.

But he had failed. Now Lance could feel his heart beating. He was afraid he had done the irreparable and ruined everything by just wanting to enjoy life.

-You may be sent down of the Garrison, McClain.

The sentence fell on the young man like a guillotine on the head of a convict. He felt his blood freezing in his veins. Fear radiated painfully into every cell of his body. Even though he was a convinced optimist and managed to joke even in the worst situations, this time he saw nothing funny. His only hope layed in the "maybe" of the director. It was a crazy, thoughtless hope, but it was the only thing he could hold on to right now. He waited for the rest, his whole body tense, a deaf buzzing in his ears.

-Unless you make amends by accepting the little task I'm about to give you. But the next time you make a mistake...

He mimed a thumb that slit his throat, his eyes so narrow that they seemed closed. Lance was way too relieved to worry about that. He realized that he had held his breath when he sighed . In spite of him, a smile came to his lips. He was staying! He could stay at the Garrison! 

-Thank you, sir! I won't disappoint you!

 

*

 

-You WHAT? Pidge choked their tofu into their plastic tray.

Sitting in the cafeteria, they and Hunk were facing the Cuban. Lance was scratching his neck. He looked up at the ceiling, his cheeks as red a a tomato.

-I didn't really have a choice. It was either that or I was fired.

They shook their head, which caused their short peanut butter-coloured hair to jump. 

-I can't believe it. Lance McClain agreed to run the theater club? Where's the hidden camera? 

They pretended to look at the ceiling. Next to them, Hunk giggled as he put a mouthful of pasta in his mouth. Lance rolled his eyes. With his arms crossed on his blue T-shirt in a sulky gesture, he seemed much more relaxed than he was a few hours before. The passage through the director's office had had its little effect, and he had remain calm until then, but the stress having passed, he had regained his usual good mood. Well, at least before Pidge had reminded him what he had gotten himself into.

When Iverson had told him what the "little job" that he had to do to continue his schooling here was, he hadn't believed his ears. Run the theater club? Of all the possible and unimaginable activities he had thought he would be punished for, it was the last one that would have came to his mind. 

At the Garrison, the classes were a little special. Rather, they consisted of a series of workshops, combining manual and intellectual work. Each student chose what he wished to do but had to take some courses more important than others, the "major ones", and several "minors" to complete. The school offered a fairly wide variety of choices, and although the teaching was not necessarily renowned for its quality, some students were able to enter universities of medium repute. Lance had physics in major and English, biology and maths in minor. This was the best he had been able to take to get closer to the requirements of astrophysics universities. In addition to these courses, there were also many sports and cultural clubs, such as the archery club, to which Lance belonged, the painting club, the literature club and the... The theater club. Unfortunately, the latter, a victim of chronic desertion, had finally closed its doors last year, leaving its three remaining members idle. The young man could never have imagined that Iverson cared. But that was obviously the case, since he had asked Lance to become its director and to put him back on his feet. When he objected by asking about the number of members, the director had simply told him to get by. The only clear thing was that if he failed to present a play at the end of the year, he would be dismissed.

Lance had not asked himself too many questions at the time, all to his relief of still being a student here, but now that he thought about it, he found strange this obsession for reviving a workshop that no one was interested in. But right now, he had other concerns. We were already mid-November, and he had to work hard if he wanted to improve in class and take care of the theater at the same time. 

-Aha, very funny, Pidge. I remind you that I am dynamic and charismatic, a perfect leader !

-I can't wait to see you recite Shakespearian quotations, they replied. Don't forget to invite me to the show! 

Raising their hand to pretend to hold a skeleton head, they raised their eyebrows and deformed their voice:

-To be or not to be, that's the question! 

They skillfully dodged a carrot thrown by the young man before bursting into laughter.

-Come on, laugh, Lance! You said it yourself, it was the only way. I mean, none of this would have happened if you hadn't thrown that fire extinguisher in the first place.

-It was an accident! the Cuban moaned.

-In any case, it was quite impressive, confirmed Hunk. I finally got my revenge on Tony Pennington. 

-He got one of those foam jets! He looked like Santa Claus, skinny version! 

Pidge bursted out laughing at the memory again. They even managed to get Lance to laugh. The young man was beginning to think about his life a lot recently. Although he had been on the verge of disaster, he had managed to get out of it, one more time. On the other hand, he had no interest in committing the slightest mistake again. It was going to be hard. He was used to doing as he pleased, to the point of no longer realizing the gravity of his actions.

"Please, if I have a guardian angel out there somewhere, tell him to watch my life a little better, because it almost went to the dogs."

A sigh of exasperation came from his left, and he turned suddenly, a strange feeling in his chest, as if butterflies had suddenly taken flight. 

-Lance? Pidge said. Whoa, Lance? 

Blinking his eyes, the Cuban refocused on his friend, who was waving their hand in front of him.

-You all right? You look like you've seen a ghost, added Hunk.

-I... No, I just thought I heard something.

There was no one to his left, but perhaps he had just imagined the noise. 

-I must be a little tired, he concludes with a forced smile. I'm gonna go see Nyma for a few minutes, then I'll be fine.

He winked at his best friends and walked to the next table, where three girls were chatting animatedly. Two of them were brown, but it was the last one Lance was interested in. 

Blonde, with beautiful purple eyes and long eyelashes, Nyma Bradford was without a doubt one of the most beautiful girls in school. She had a reputation for playing with men, and several boys had already paid for it, but that didn't stop Lance from hitting on her every time he saw her. 

-Hi, beauty, he said, taking a chair to sit next to her. Do you have a map by any chance? I got lost in your eyes.

She smiled as her two friends rolled their eyes. If Nyma was known as a manhunter, then Lance probably held the title of the biggest pick-up line thrower. The first week of the year, he had no hesitation in approaching a new student and telling him that he looked like his future boyfriend. 

-You already pulled that one out for me last month, the girl remarked. 

-That's because you're too beutiful, I can't think straight. 

She giggled. On the table next to them, Pidge grumbled. 

-What does he see in her, seriously? She seems to have as much conversation as a teaspoon.

-Don't judge by appearances, advised Hunk. You might get surprises. 

-I'm waiting...

Lance stayed a few more minutes at the girls' table before returning to see his friends, proud of him. After the beginning of the day he had spent, Pidge could not blame him for wanting to distract himself. She just would have preferred someone other than Nyma. 

-Shall we go? the young man said as he grabbed his tray with a smile. I got physics, I wouldn't want to be late. I don't want Iverson coming down on me!

With the same movement, Hunk and Pidge followed him to the place where the trays were to be deposited, and Lance felt again that strange feeling of being followed. He blamed it on fatigue. There was a flu epidemic in the school, maybe he was just coming down with something.

During the rest of the day, the sensation did not leave him, and he turned several times to make sure that nobody was really following him.

Then, once in his bed, exhausted by his long day, he fell asleep in one go without thinking about it, without noticing the hollow of his mattress next to him, and without hearing a vague sniff, as if a person was crying softly and trying to hide it.


	3. Forgotten Memories

(TW anxiety!)

Keith couldn't take it anymore. He had been shaking for a good ten minutes, sitting at the edge of the bed, holding back from crying. His breathing was erratic. He hoped the human wouldn't notice. Until now, he had remained rather discreet. But this time, it was too much. All the pressure of the day, all the stress was suddenly reappearing, drowning him in a flood of feelings that carried him away. He couldn't even identify everything he felt: sadness, anger, loneliness, despair, fatigue, fear, disappointment, resentment, a bit of everything coupled together, a messy mixture that formed a huge bubble ready to burst inside him.

And it felt like it was all physically resting on his chest, as if he had been put on a one-ton dumbbell. His anxiety had returned, stronger than ever. He panted, trying to calm himself, to breathe in and out as he had once been taught, holding his shaken chest, trying to calm the panicked beats of his heart. In vain: soon tears rolled down his cheeks, and he put one hand on his mouth, holding a sob. He had this awful feeling that he would never be happy again. That nothing on Earth or in heaven would be able to bring him joy. It was such an awful feeling, as if a hand was squeezing his heart stronger and stronger and suffocating him, a feeling that, strangely enough, was no stranger to him. This observation was perhaps the worst of all, and he curled up, hands on his face, unable to hold back his tears now. Was he so unlucky he'd been through this before he died? He couldn't even reason anymore. His insecurities were like a huge wave that went through him, leaving him sounded and desperate. Hoqueting, trembling, he rolled over himself and his head touched the ground. It was stronger than him: the whole film of his day went on and on, like an infernal top that would spin indefinitely in his brain. He felt as if his body and mind were howling in unison. He didn't know how to get out of it. He could do nothing but silently shouting all the pain he felt.

When you think of it, the day hasn't been this much of a ordeal. It was just an accumulation of little things that had led him to this state. He couldn't take it anymore.

*

Keith didn't remember anything when he woke up. He was lying on a hard, uncomfortable ground, with a horrible headache, not remembering what he was doing there. He did not recognize the walls around him, he had forgotten even his identity. The only thing he had left was his first name. He had no idea how old he was or what he looked like. As he was straigntening up, a horrible feeling of déjà vu twisted his stomach. Quickly, he scanned the elements around him. He felt like he knew something here that made him uncomfortable. Yet he was pretty sure he'd never seen this room before.

The room was half dark, but the light filtering from the shutters was strong enough to see. To her left was a bed covered with a messy blue duvet, as if the person had suddenly been woken from his sleep to do something urgent and had forgotten to make his bed. On the wall next door were posters of NASA or Star Wars, as well as phosphorescent stars whose glow had faded from shining all night. The floor was littered with loose clothes. In front of the bed, and therefore in front of Keith, was a desk, completely messy. The sheets of paper and files on it seemed to have been lifted by a storm before falling back all over the place mat. Keith couldn't see the details, but it seemed like there was a crisp wrapping ripped open on the red plastic chair.

The other side of the room was radically different, yet the layout was the same. Keith knew that it was a boarding school, without even knowing where this statement came from. On this side, the duvet cover was yellow, and the walls were covered with photos of people who were strangers to him. The desk was a little better organized, although full of books and notebooks of all kinds. None of this was telling Keith what he was doing here. He looked desperately around him, looking for a clue, anything that might shed light on his situation. Carefully, he walked into the room to the office on the blue side. He noticed a detail that he had not seen before: on the cupboard door were arranged a lot of photos, glued one on top of the other for lack of space.

Curious, he approached closer to better detail them. On most of them came the image of two young children, who looked like twins, with a tanned complexion and a bright smile, as well as a very beautiful young girl with strangely purple eyes. Keith frowned at the sight of her. He felt he knew something important about her. Maybe it was her he knew, maybe it was to see her that he was here? He searched her memory to find out where he might have met her. Grabbing the photo, he approached the window to have a better luminosity, when suddenly...

-... And I swear it works, look, my hair has never been so perfect!

The door opened suddenly, making Keith jump. Two young boys burst into the room. The first one had dark skin and black hair held by a flowering orange bandana. He smiled distractedly, as if he had already undergone this conversation throughout the week and knew it by heart. The other, the one who spoke, was the taller and the thinner of the two, and he smiled widely. Keith admitted in spite of himself that he was probably one of the most beautiful boys he had ever seen. He was slender, but still seemed strong. His skin, the same colour as the children in the photos, looked extremely soft. His short cut brown hair curled slightly at the ends, and his huge smile dimpled his left cheek. He wore a white t-shirt with blue sleeves, jeans of the same color and white sneakers. At his sight, Keith felt something moving in him, as if a cloud of butterflies had just taken off in his belly. His brain had tilted when he had saw the young man. Again he felt he was missing something important, but he didn't know what. The feeling made him want to snap his fingers until it came back to him. Then it occurred to him that perhaps the two boys were going to wonder what he was doing in their room. At that thought, he froze. Too late to hide, he thought, petrified.

As an echo to his thoughts, the chatty teenager suddenly stopped and suddenly raised his eyes until he met Keith. As soon as he saw the young man's irises, which were bright blue, he felt a click in his brain. He had the impression that his pupils contained a world in their delicate bluish shades, and that suddenly there were only their two bodies left, surrounded by fragments of memories. Flashes crossed his mind, as brief as lightning, and in an instant the memory returned to him entirely. He was an angel. He had been exiled. He was there to look after a human. He knew, as if it had always been anchored in him, that it was this young man he had to keep. He felt an irrepressible attraction that forced him to concentrate all his attention on himself, at the same time as his body seemed to vibrate in his direction. It was obvious, like it was in his genes. It was him and not another.

-Hello, Lance? You all right? the other boy asked, concerned.

"Lance" blinked and frowned before turning to his friend, visibly disturbed. The charm broke, Keith suddenly saw the room re-form around them. He shook his head, his mind still scrambled.

-I... No, nothing, Lance said. He looked in Keith's direction again, but his eyes glided over him without seeing him, and the angel concluded that he had become invisible. Maybe their eye contact had only been a way to "seal" their bond? Keith didn't know, and he didn't care. He did not intend to stay here and follow a human as if he were his shadow, no matter connected he was to him. The unease he had felt when he had woke up was still there. As his memories had returned, he tried to draw from his memory elements that might have been useful to him in escaping from here. He didn't know why, but he didn't want to linger.

-Wait a sec... Lance suddenly approached dangerously.

Keith instinctively backed off. But the teenager simply picked up the picture of the girl the angel had dropped and put it back on the closet door, not without sending her a kiss from his right hand.

-Hurry up, we'll be late, Lance's friend said.

The brown one nodded his head and grabbed his backpack on the floor before taking one last look inside the room, then closing the door behind him. Keith sighed with relief. For some unknown reason, he felt stressed in Lance's presence. It is as if the young man monopolized all his attention, as if he had to be on the alert for the least of his actions lest he make a mistake. It was probably a consequence of their bond... How could he call it? Their angelic bond. Even now, when the young man must have already been far away, this feeling of fear still occupied a small corner of his brain. Keith shook her head, as if it could make her go away. Now alone in the room, he could observe as much as he wanted the environment around him. But curiously, all his energy from earlier to search the nooks and crannies of his memory had disappeared. He just felt tired, and a little relieved, as if he had managed to find a word after having it on the tip of his tongue for hours. Even when he forced himself to detail the girl's picture, it was no longer the same. He no longer had this eagerness to know what he was doing here and why it reminded him of something. It was probably because of his memories, but not only because he felt strangely... Complete, as if he no longer needed to know anything other than what he was now.

Alas, discovering his true nature had not helped his discomfort, which grew more and more as he recalled his life in the Elyseum. He still remembered painfully his failed act, his imprisonment, his trial, then his exile. The fall to Earth had been painful. He assumed that this was the price to pay to be excluded from paradise. Now he was stuck here, with no chance of returning home. His home... His heart tightened violently as it appeared to him more than ever that he had no home, that he had no place where he felt in his place. The Elyseum? He had never been happy there, never been like the other angels. He had always been on the offbeat, the lone wolf. On Earth? He knew that if he was a first-rate angel, it was because he had been a human before, before he died. But if he did, he should have been happy to return to this planet, right? He didn't know how to define himself. Human? Angel? Being stretched between two worlds, being a mixture of two origins was not something easy to wear. And he felt out of place in neither world. So, what was left for him?

Carefully he opened the window. The fresh air whipped his face, gently lifting his black locks. The low temperature made him think that it was probably the end of the year, perhaps around February or March at the most. That is, if he were ever in the northern hemisphere. He had no landmarks, except for the language of the two young men, who had used English. Nothing in the room looked like a calendar. Maybe taking a walk outside would help him figure out where he landed. He put one foot on the window sill and pushed it until his arms reached the curtain rod, succeeds in climbing entirely with the help of the latter. Once balanced halfway between the inside and the outside, he looked down. He was obviously at the limit of the building, because to his right only a piece of wall remained while to his left still extended a good part of what was to be the boarding school. The floor he was on was the third. In front of him was a wooded park, in which young adults walked, alone or in groups. Further, behind the trees, he saw an even bigger building, set with a clock, and next to it, a coat of arms. He could not read the inscription on it, but his sight evoked something distant in him. A high school, he thought. This observation stirred something in his stomach, and he quickly brought his attention to the movements of the people below. Keith tried to look for the boy in the blue T-shirt in the crowd, but there were far too many students. It wasn't even sure he was on this side, since the court had to extend to his right. Swallowing the unpleasant vertigo that had seized him at the sight of high school, he wanted to spread his wings, ready to throw himself into the void, but these did not come and, unbalanced, he almost fell. He swore aloud, having just caught up on the curtain. The words of Archangel Michael suddenly came back to him. He had no right to his wings, no right to his powers. He was on his own, forced to fend for himself. At this thought, he felt his eyes sting dangerously. His wings were the only thing he really loved in his angelly condition. If they had been removed, he was definitely nothing.

Swallowing his sadness, he advised the height on the ground with a view to jumping but finally did not decide, still uncertain what could bear this fragile human body. Finally, he decided to just walk through the door. Luckily, Lance hadn't locked it. Once in the hallway, Keith felt his breathing get stuck again. He panted for a few seconds with his hand over his heart, eyes closed, trying to calm this sudden, uncontrollable rise in stress. He could do it. He'd done worse before. Uncomfortable, he walked down the hall and down the stairs to the exit. Outside, the atmosphere had changed. During the half dozen minutes it took him to decide what to do, the great half of the students had disappeared, caught up in the huge red stone buildings that surrounded Keith, suffocating him from their height. Around him remained only a few latecomers, running, their bag stuck in their arms. He tried again to get his wings out, in vain. A ball began to grow more and more in his throat, the only sign of the deaf anguish that was beginning to rise in him. He breathed in and out, leaning against the wall. He wasn't supposed to panic. These seven words repeated themselves like a mantra." Breathe in. Exhale. You're gonna be okay."

Throughout the morning he wandered through the park, hiding as soon as the bell rang, an action that was useless in view of the fact that he was invisible to the eyes of the other students. As soon as he tried to use his powers again, and failed, he felt more and more anxious, preventing him from thinking properly. At about eleven thirty, he heard a huge "boom" at the other end of the courtyard and felt his entrails contract violently. He knew something had happened to Lance. He began to run, leaving the comfortable post that he had found himself in an oak tree, momentarily forgetting the pain that had seized him. His mind was focused on one person: the human that he had to protect, against all odds. When he arrived at the scene of the accident, he could not believe his eyes. There was no trace of Lance, but a fire extinguisher was lying on one of the flowerbeds, ripped open. All the students gathered around, suspicious at first, now grabbed large amounts of foam to throw at each other. Keith looked around, looking for Lance. He was taken from an irrepressible need to find him. Finally he saw him perched atop the building. He wanted to fly to him, but the lack of tingling in his back reminded him very quickly that he was unable to. He swore and ran into the building. He took long minutes to get his bearings in the corridors, which all looked the same. But Lance was no longer at his post when he finally arrived. Keith didn't know what to do. He wandered between the rooms, and his feet eventually led him to the director's door. Just as he was arriving, the door opened and Lance came out of it in rage.

-Lance! exclaimed the angel, overwhelmed by an irrepressible relief.

The young man did not react and continued his walk with his hands in his pockets. He seemed to have lost all his morning enthusiasm. Unintentionally worried, Keith was about to follow him, when his attention was drawn to a window full of cups and awards. School year group photos were also displayed, representing students from a bygone era. He approached it, a strange feeling in the hollow of his heart. Delicately, he put his hand on the window, detailing with his eyes the vestiges of the school's prestige. One of the cuts, in particular, held his gaze. It was awarded to a certain Gregor McLaughin in 1987. He had no idea who this boy was, or what he had done to deserve this award, but the name undoubtedly awakened something in him. Again he wondered about his life on Earth. Did he have any connection to this place? Apart from the purple-eyed girl's face and this name, there were no special memories for him. He just felt slightly nauseous, and his heart was beating abnormally fast, as if he was constantly stressed. Could he have lived here when he was young? Was it possible that the Archangels sent him to where he once lived so that he could find in his past the answer to his troubles of today? But in that case, why didn't they just tell him how his human life went? Besides, it didn't look like the Archangel way. Or perhaps they had not chosen its destination, but left it to fate? _Bullshit! Angels don't rely on fate. They create it._

All those questions were giving him a headache. All he wanted to do was snuggle under a duvet and never come out. He was sick and tired of the whole thing. How was he supposed to look after the life of a human, he who had not even succeeded in his death? He had to abandon his mission. If that was where his past was, if the answers to his questions were here, he had to find them at all costs, and finally be at peace with himself. Lance could take care of himself. Almost immediately, he changed his mind. Lance could certainly fend for himself, but he could also serve Keith to discover things about his past. After all, it was when he saw it that he regained his memory, wasn't it?Moved by a new will, the angel ran after the human. He found him in the refectory, sitting at the table with two other people. Keith recognized one of them as Lance's roommate.

-He caught one of those foam jets! the other said, laughing. He looked like Santa Claus, skinny version !

Lance burst out laughing, and his roomate did the same. Keith swallowed. Lance's laughing vision was way too much for his nervous system. He was really beautiful. Well, it wasn't especially him who thought so. Anyone else would have thought he was beautiful, of course. You had to be objective: Lance was a pretty boy. When he laughed like that, little fine lines appeared in the corner of his eyes. Her laugh was like hearing dozens of bells tinkle, though that was a cliché thought to have. Anyway, Keith was sure that anyone in the room would have agreed with him: he illuminated the room, both physically and with the timbre of his voice. But he didn't have time to procrastinate any longer: the next minute, it's like he was hearing his protégé's voice ringing in his head.

" _Please, if I have a guardian angel out there somewhere, tell him to watch my life a little better, because it almost went to the dogs."_

Keith almost choked. What?! He let an exasperated sigh, rolling his eyes. Lance suddenly straightened up in his direction, curious, as if he had heard the angel's complaint. But the next second, alerted by his other friend (Keith had been unable to decide whether it was a girl or a boy), he turned around and no longer paid attention to him. Until he got up to the next table, and it was like an electric shock to Keith.

The blonde girl with the purple eyes was there, peacefully eating. The familiarity was so strong that Keith was about to find out who she reminded him of. Amazed, he watched the young man sit next to her and talk to her about what he didn't know. He seemed to be sitting for a little while. So he had plenty of time to detail it. She was beautiful, too. He thought that if that was Lance's girlfriend, they were a very handsome couple, the popular genre everyone loved, and he racked his brain to remember why that girl aroused so many feelings in him. Maybe it was just because she was so connected to his protégé? He didn't know that. This made him even more angry. He hated being so helpless, without a key to understand what he was doing there and how he was supposed to act. Couldn't the Archangels provide him with a manual of the perfect Guardian Angel? No, of course, he had to fend for himself!

With a new sigh, Keith continued to follow Lance the rest of the day, hoping to discover new things about why he was here. He endured his discomfort and his questions quite well, holding them back for later.

But that night was too much for him. Once back in the room, he was about to vomit, his stomach repelling horribly, his uneasiness taking precedence over everything else. All the pressure of the day was back. In his head were spinning the same thoughts over and over: why was he here? Why did he die so young? Why didn't he belong anywhere? He was tired of feeling alienated from everything. He was fed up, he was tired, he just wanted to fly away and hover in the air forever. After a period of silent crying, he ended up lying down with his head on the floor. Sleep was the only thing that could free him from that weight on his heart.</p>


	4. Nocturnal apparition

In the end, the drama club may not have been such a good idea.

Always better than being expelled, that was a fact. But Lance was beginning to think that he had celebrated a little too son when accepting the principal's request. At the time, as long as he could avoid expulsion, he would have accepted any offer. But now that he was at the door of the school theatre, he was beginning to reconsider his options.

From the outside, the building did not look like much. Back in a corner of the school attended only by maintenance staff, it was rectangular, flattened and about twenty metres high. To get there, he had had to ask his teachers three times for directions, before finally getting to the tiny courtyard behind the sports facilities. What he found there definitely did not fit with the idea of a theatre. 

Lance was expecting a huge door, sparkling signs, a red carpet and lackeys at the entrance. Well, maybe the lackeys were too much to ask for. After all, it was a high school, not Broadway. But ... this. The building was in a deplorable state. Neglected, it did not offer a very pleasant show. Moisture oozed from the roof, leaving darker grooves streaking the surface. A dirty window broke the monotony of the grey wall at regular intervals. It was the only ornament on the dirty facade, except for the faded remains of a fresco with psychedelic motifs, probably made by students under the threat of a crazy art teacher. The door in front of which Lance stood was narrow, and consisted only of two roughly assembled wooden panels with a latch. The building didn't look very large, and had more of a haunted house than a theatre. He was almost expecting to find a ragged skeleton opening the door for him.

Fortunately for him, the only thing that adorned the entrance hall was a coat rack, certainly scary, but harmless. He touched the wall on his right in search of the switch, in vain. He finally took his phone out of his pocket to light the way. A quick glance at the ceiling made him understand why the electricity was not working: the bulb was broken. Grumbling at the insalubrity of the premises and regretting for the first time the excessive budget allocated to the archery club, he stepped into the hall. Actually, it was more like a hallway. To his left, two doors opened to the toilets, and to his right, a counter probably used for the changing rooms sank into the dark depths. At the end, the corridor widened after a double door, forming a decent room. This time, the light was working. Lance quickly scanned the part, recording every detail. He was obviously coming from the back. To his left, aligned tables were to be used for the bar on the evenings of the show. In front of him, rows of chairs were facing a large stage, flanked by curtains that must have once been red, but whose current colour was more evokating salmon. The ceiling was not very high, as he had figured from the outside, but the lighting was powerful. Large black spotlights, hanging over his head, were pointed at the scene. He almost had the impression that he was going to attend a performance of which he would have been the only spectator. Despite the obvious abandonment of this place, there was still a sense of power, which almost gave him chills. As if the place had a soul. As if there had been fiery plays here, powerful statements, as if the audience here had cried, loved, suffered. Lance felt it almost physically.

Cautiously, he ventured to the bottom of the stage. Then, with a skillful swing of his hips, he climbed onto the boards. The cloud of dust that this action caused him to cough. When he opened his eyes again, he had a perfect view of the floor, just as the actors should have had during the plays.

Lance didn't know that there was a space for the drama club until now. Actually, he didn't even know there was a drama club. He must've had a list of all the possible and unimaginable activities offered by the school when he arrived, but what didn't interest him quickly passed over his head. Yet, he had always been of the dramatic kind, and he had never been afraid to have an audience, on the contrary. Perhaps he would discover a new vocation after all. Driven by a new impulse, he cleared his throat and began to declaim a replica of Romeo and Juliet, one arm raised, taking the most theatrical air possible : 'Ah, dear Juliet/Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe/That unsubstantial death is amorous,/And that the lean abhorred monster keeps/Thee here in dark to be his paramour?'

He leaned over an imaginary body, grieving, with a voice full of pain : 'Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!/Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on/The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!/Here's to my love!'

His long fingers seemed to close on a cup that he pretended to take to his lips.

'O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.'

In an exaggerated rail, he made large gestures, then collapsed on the dusty ground. Almost immediately, applause echoed behind him. Surprised, he got up, dusting his jeans and jacket, embarrassed that he had been discovered in such a situation.

At the bottom of the stage, in front of the first row of chairs, stood two enthusiastic teenagers. The tallest of them, whom Lance recognized from his astrophysics class, approached to go up and held out a hand to the young man, a smile on his lips.

'Congratulations! It was excellent. A little too much overplayed, but excellent. Can you tell us why we've never seen you at the theater club?'

In spite of him, Lance blushed. He scratched his neck and waved to the newcomers, not yet sure what to say to them. The other had already joined them on stage. There was a girl and a boy, both too similar to each other for it to be a coincidence. The boy smiled maliciously, his baby face framed with brown curls.

'I... I'm pretty busy with the archery club...' said Lance sheepishly.

For some strange reason, he didn't want to tell them the truth, that he had never been interested in theatre. At least, the theatre at the Garrison, because otherwise, his whole life was a dramatic play. But the boy did not seem to notice his hesitant tone.

'Anyway, it was impressive. How come you know the text so well? You didn't hesitate once!'

Lance held a grimace. That explanation was much more shameful to give. He hesitated for a moment, then finally found a believable lie: 'Last year, my sister had to train to play Juliet, so I gave her the line.'

The truth was that he himself had wanted to learn the words by heart, to impress Nyma in case he managed to get her to the theatre club. He was sure she would accept. She never missed an opportunity to be the star. As soon as he knew he was going to take care of the club, he hoped to be in charge of choosing the play, and thus select Romeo and Juliet to finally have the opportunity to kiss the young woman. She had been pushing back her advances for six months now. Lance knew how to be patient, but he was eager for her to respond to his clumsy attempts to declare his love for him. Since his brief stint in the director's office, he had imagined himself on the stage many times, playing a love scene, which would obviously involve him as Romeo and Nyma as Juliet. Despite appearances, he was an incomparable romantic. And even if he hid his true feelings behind a rather silly flirtation facade, he was still a sensitive boy who lost confidence in himself when he was mistaken for a toy. Nyma's attitude was not a surprise, but it was still hurtful. And yet, he couldn't help but keep believing that one day she would return his feelings.

'My name is Ray, and this is Shay," said the teenager, taking Lance out of his thoughts. 'We're the Garrison Theatre Company.'

Shay, standing back, waved her hand. She seemed shy, not the kind of person Lance thought was comfortable on a stage.

'The whole troupe...?' asked him.

Ray smiled contritely.

'Let's say we've had some losses these last years. Our.... Mr. Iverson couldn't bring himself to close the club because, well, I love it, except that we couldn't continue with so few members.'

He looked at Lance with the eyes of the Puss in Boots Cat.

'He said you'd help us. He said you could get the club back on track.'

Lance hit himself mentally for throwing that fire extinguisher out the window. If he wasn't such an idiot, none of this would have happened and he would be on his bed right now listening to Nicki Minaj's latest album. For a moment, he was tempted to tell Ray and his shy girlfriend to go to hell, then the memory of the director's menacing face came back to him and he sighed. He had no choice.

'Yes, I will help you.'

It couldn't be that bad, could it?

*

An hour later, Lance corrected himself. Yes, it could be that bad.

He didn't even know what was really problematic. A little bit of everything together, he assumed.

Was it the fact that part of the scene was obviously old enough to collapse under the weight of a reasonably tall teenager? No, because Lance felt pretty upset when Ray told him that before he put his feet on it, the floor was holding perfectly well.

Or maybe the fact that Ray was really a very, very bad actor? He was doing his best, that was for sure. At first, Lance was just thinking about giving him a slightly less important role. But from the moment he pretended to be shaken by spasms to pretend to be terrified, he lost all hope of getting something good out of him.

The fact that the play selected by the two teenagers was not at all appropriate like, at all ? This year they had chosen a work by a certain Samuel Beckett, about which Lance had never heard before. Enthusiastic, they had started to play it. It was boring, incomprehensible, completely ridiculous and it lacked too much romance for the young man's taste.

And now Ray and Shay were looking at him, the hope engraved on their faces, waiting for his opinion. He opened his mouth, weighing the pros and cons, hesitating to come out with a very clear "No" and leave to never come back. There was too much work to do. He had neither the time, nor the energy, nor the desire to get started. But that was the condition he had to meet to stay here. And despite everything that feared in that university, he loved it with all his heart. He loved the room that he shared with his best friend. He loved the park, the tall trees against which you could lean in the summer. He liked the old corridors, the squeaky stairs and poorly insulated windows. He liked... in fact, he couldn't find anything else to add to the list. He hated this school. The only thing that kept him from leaving at the first opportunity was that this damn university was the last resort to make his dream come true. He had to handle the theather thing.

Almost immediately, he knew that he could not answer that everything was fine and that they could continue like that. His goal was to relaunch the theatre club. It was never going to be able to succeed if the only thing offered to attract people was this boring and complex play! If he wanted to carry out his mission, he had no choice: he had to tell them the truth, namely that no moderately constituted teenager would accept to play in such a thing. Well, maybe not like that. He could be more subtle.

'Huh..... I'm not sure we're good right now.'

After slapping himself internally in front of Shay's desperate face, he nuanced his words:

'I mean..... The play is excellent. Yes, yes, I have nothing to say about it. But you see....'

He was trying to buy time, to find a parry, a valid excuse to refuse to play this thing. Suddenly, a flash of genius passed through him.

'... She is too smart for the rest of the students!' he added in a much more assertive tone.

The eyes of the two teenagers were puzzled. Congratulating himself on his wit, his usual composure took over and he began to improvise a short speech.

'The problem is, you two are geniuses. Hell of a genius, even. This play, you understand it, it speaks to you. But it must be remembered that this is not necessarily the case for everyone. I, of course, am sensitive to such a work, and I find it superb, but....'

Lance leaned forward in a tone of confidence.

'... This is not necessarily the case for everyone here, if you know what I mean....'

Ray nodded with a sigh, as if he was used to seeing others as significantly inferior to him. Shay, on the other hand, seemed more sceptical. Did she feel that Lance was acting? If that was the case, she wouldn't let it appear so.

'If you want to have actors and restore your image, it's going to be hard, but you're going to have to find a more accessible piece," sighed Lance to finish his little argument.

Ray nodded, sign that he understood.

'You're probably right. What are you thinking about?'

The expert air Lance was displaying suddenly vanished.

'What do you mean, what am I thinking?'

'You probably have an idea in mind, don't you? A piece that is both simple and full of messages.'

'We are ready to work on a new text if it can bring us members," added Shay, who took a step forward.

Lance's sky blue eyes moved from one to the other. This was something he hadn't considered. He had imagined, of course, that he would rule the theatre club like a master, pass castings, decorate the room, choose a romantic play and perform it with Nyma in front of hundreds of spectators. But now that he was at the heart of the problem, standing on the dusty stage in this dirty building, facing two teenagers way much smarter than he was, his dreams of glory seemed very stupid to him. He felt a familiar anguish rise in him. Again this damn inferiority complex, which always woke up at the wrong time. He couldn't stand the hope Ray and Shay put in him. He was not able to do a good job. He was going to fail his year, fail his life, because he was worthless. He wanted to tell them that he didn't know what to play, that he didn't know anything about it, that the name Samuel Beckett sounded more like a brand of frozen fries than a playwright for him, that he had no expertise in any field and that because of him, the club would probably go down permanently.

'Sorry," he murmured. I don't have any ideas for a play.

'It's okay, we'll find one!' exclaimed Ray, still as enthusiastic as ever. 'So, what do we want in it?'

He pulled a notebook and a pen from his backpack. Lance, so surprised that he did not start despising him, watched him do it without understanding.

'Inside?'

'In the play!' insisted the teenager. 'We write down what we would like to see in it, then I'll type the keywords in a specialized software. He will find us the ideal work in a few minutes!'

He began to write frantically on the sheet.

'Fights, because it's fun to play... Dead people to make it look more realistic....'

'Romance?' suggested Shay.

Lance blessed her. He immediately swore to himself to do everything possible to make this young girl happy for the rest of her life. Suddenly, everything was becoming interesting.

'A tragic love story', he added.

'Yes, yes, that's good!'

Ray wrote down all the suggestions and then closed his notebook with a sudden gesture. He took a look at his watch, grinned and then jumped out of the scene clumsily. He almost fell to the ground and barely caught up at the edge of the boards, before coughing and then picking up again with a voice he wanted to be sure:

'Well, now that we have the basics, all we have to do is implement them. Right now I have violin lessons, I have to go. I'll take care of looking for the play. Lance, if you could start talking about the club around you, that would be cool. Shay, try to convince da... Mr. Iverson to give us more budget, we'll never get away with it otherwise. We'll meet tomorrow evening at the same time here, with some changes I hope!'

Then he disappeared, as sneakily as he had arrived. Shay hurried down as well and ran after him, not without throwing a sign of apology to the Cuban before leaving. Then the door closed on her, slamming echoing in the huge room.

Left alone in the theatre, Lance sighed. This first session may not have been as he imagined it would be, but they had managed to be productive in the end. Carefully, he jumped off the stage, landing loosely on the ground. There, he grabbed his backpack and headed towards the back of the room. Ray's words were running through his head. Find a play that met all their criteria.... He had an idea in mind, but he wasn't ready to see it come true yet.

Turning off all the lights, he finally left the building, exhausted. The fresh evening air gently caressed his face as he walked into the schoolyard. It was more than nine o'clock, and except for the boarders, no more students were allowed to walk around the school compound. The courtyard was strangely quiet, emptied of its occupants. He didn't usually go out so late, he wasn't used to seeing the Garrison from that angle. At that time, only bathed in moonlight, it seemed much less threatening than in broad daylight. The low lighting and absence of noise made it peaceful, almost welcoming. This added to the relief of finally being able to go and rest gave Lance a pleasant feeling of contentment. He had never been a big fan of the night, but strangely enough, he liked this offbeat atmosphere. Maybe he might even appreciate it in the end.

As he walked, he let his eyes wander around him. There were still some glimmers coming from the classrooms. Probably zealous teachers, he thought. He didn't care: he only wanted to go to his cozy bed and lie on it until the next morning. He didn't have any urgent homework to do. He could quietly join Hunk and talk to him about this strange experience. Maybe they'd even watch a movie.

But despite his efforts to think of something else, Lance couldn't help but go over the list Ray had written. Romance, death, fighting, an important message... A sudden urge he hadn't felt in a long time was titillating him. The more he thought about it, the more dangerously he wanted to give in to this impulse. At first he tried to hold back, but it was a lost cause: now that the idea had come to his mind, he could not get rid of it. He eventually gave up the fight and turned to the low wall that bounded the flowerbeds on the right side of the yard. After checking that no one was looking at him, he knelt down and began to remove the bricks from the ground, one after the other. It was not an easy job: the successive layers of soil and grass had half buried the base of the wall. When he finished, the space thus discovered revealed a simple blue notebook, placed in a shoebox buried in the ground, overflowing with handwritten sheets of fuzzy writing. A wave of emotions crossed him at the sight of the object. He hadn't touched it in a long time. Quickly, he flipped through it. Everything was there. He got up, trying to put the loose leaves back in order, and placed the soil and stones over the box. Then he walked away, holding his precious notebook against his heart. He was halfway through the boarding school when a thud made him freeze. His blood froze in his veins and he turned to the source of the noise, slowly. He had heard something, he was sure of it.

After a few seconds, he raised his voice:

'Hello ?'

He took back everything he had just thought about the night: it was terrifying and full of monsters who just wanted to eat him. Cautiously, he repeated his question.

'Anybody here ? Hello?'

To find out for sure, he approached the low wall on the edge of which he had stood a few minutes earlier. The stones were correctly replaced. No trace of anyone whatsoever.

'I know you're there. Show yourself! I order you to show yourself!'

Just as he said these words, a shadow seemed to pass in front of him. He screamed, holding his notebook against his chest as if it could protect him. The shadow took shape, transforming into a silhouette. Lance opened his mouth, stunned. It couldn't have hidden, there were no bushes nearby. It was as if the person had appeared out of nowhere in that exact place. He couldn't see who - or what - it was, from where he stood. What he was sure of was that it couldn't be a human.

'I-I-I-I know how to do karate!' he stuttered, uneasy. 'Come, if you dare!'

The silhouette leaned over, curious. Then its structure changed again and it suddenly became luminous. Lance couldn't believe it. Before him now stood a perfectly distinguishable young man of about his age. Except he wasn't a normal boy. It was as if he was shining from the inside. His transparent skin showed his veins and they seemed to be filled with a fluorescent liquid. The light emanating from him softened his features, revealing a soft face, as if carved in crystal. His eyes sometimes looked grey, sometimes indigo, and they were lined with long black and thick eyelashes. His dark hair was longer than Lance's, and fell delicately on his neck, curling around the curve of his ear. His thin lips were pinched and his eyebrows frowned, but he did not seem to show any real antipathy. On him, this expression seemed natural. Otherwise, he seemed rather well built, muscular but with a slender body. The phosphorescent glow emanating from his skin could even be seen under his T-shirt, making the scene even more unreal.  
Lance was overwhelmed. The first thought that came to his mind was that if angels existed, that's probably what they should look like.  
Then the stranger opened his mouth, taking him out of his amazement, and asked:

'You can see me?'


	5. First encounter

Lance was everything Keith hated about humans.

And God knows he had had the time to realize it : he had followed him all day, from breakfast to the theater, hoping to find a way to regain his powers. The more he spent time with him, the more he was starting to hate him. Lance was part of a social group that Keith hated more than anything : the populars. Those who laughed at everything and made everyone laugh with them. Those who seduced girls in a few seconds, just with a smile and a wink. Those that everyone worshipped stupidly. Those who always belonged everywhere. Those who never seemed to feel sad, nor feel anything else than joy at all. Keith couldn’t stand this kind of people. He didn’t know why, he just couldn’t. It wasn’t something he could choose, he felt it in his guts, just like when he had felt that Lance was the human he was supposed to protect. And now, he realized he had to protect someone he didn’t like.

Lance was an open man, easy-going. The type people invited to parties, because they were sure he would make everyone feel at ease. Always smiling, with a joke to tell and a sadness-proof mood. He seemed to have no difficulty talking to others, even those who he barely knew, and Keith hated him even more for it. He had seen him flirt with Nyma several times during the day, and each time, this action seemed so easy for Lance to do that it made him want to throw up. The way he leaned so naturally on the table, his voice with flirtatious accents... At those moments, the angel's jaw involuntarily contracted, and he felt his stomach tightened. He had no idea why: it couldn't be jealousy, he didn't even knew them, neither of them! Perhaps it was related to his past, and that this stay on Earth unconsciously brought out traumatic elements of his human existence. If that was the case, he would rather not know what it was about. His uneasiness was already quite constant enough without him having to add bad memories above all. And to feel like he knew Nyma, but couldn't figure out where she was from, frustrated him to the fullest. Was it in relation to Lance that she seemed so familiar to him? Did he have to do anything special about her? For the hundredth time, he regretted not having an instruction manual provided with the exile.

In addition to finding him far too talkative and noisy, he also considered Lance ridiculous. In recent days, he had attended his pitiful rehearsals of Romeo and Juliet, all with the sole purpose of seducing the pretty blonde. He had refrained from yelling at him that what he was doing was useless and that he was going to great lengths for nothing. Anyway, Lance couldn't have heard it: Keith was invisible and inaudible to everyone. This could sometimes prove to be an advantage, because it allowed him to grumble aloud about the disastrous choices the young man made in his life, and about everything that made this school a school of turds with prejudices. Despite everything, he sometimes couldn't help but feel a slight pinch in his heart when Lance or Hunk passed in front of him without reacting. He spent his nights on the window sill, halfway between falling and despair, and sometimes he prayed that Lance would sit next to him and talk to him, just to feel alive. One day, at one of those moments when loneliness became too heavy for him, he went into the room and shook the young man to try to wake him up, to try to get his attention, anything that would prove to him that he wasn't going to go mad alone until the end of time, but in vain: he remained desperately as immaterial as a ghost. He had cried, screamed, and finally fell asleep, rolled into a ball on the ground. Last night was a horrible night. Usually, he would just talk to Lance and hope that he would wake up and finally look at him. But it never worked. And the next day, ashamed, he tried to convince himself that it wasn't serious, and that he hated it anyway, and usually Lance did nothing to contradict that statement: the next day, he went to stupid student parties or continued to flirt with everything that identified with the female gender, and Keith forgot everything he had wanted the night before.

He therefore found himself in a very difficult situation: forced to stay with a person he hated for an indefinite period of time, if he wanted to have the slightest chance of recovering his angelic attributes. And even then, he wasn't even sure Lance would be useful to him. It was simply the only lead he had. He had no idea how he could get his wings back, and if he could, he didn't see what it would do for him: he couldn't go back to heaven that way. In fact, he didn't even know if he could ever go back there. What were the conditions? Did he have to do anything special with Lance? When would his mission be considered complete? And even if he were allowed to go back, was that really the best solution?

This question was the one that scared him the most. Until now, he had clung to the Elyseum as a distant promise that would solve all his problems, a kind of vague solution of last resort. But the more time he spent on Earth, the less engaging this option seemed to him. At night, he woke up with a start, his nightmares haunted by the images of an idyllic place reduced to flames, the fire coming from his own hands. He knew that he was not made to be in heaven, that his existence as an angel was just a huge mistake. The problem was that staying here was not an option either. No matter how much he turned and turned all this around in his head, he couldn't come to a conclusion that would allow him to live happily. And the worst part was that he was beginning to resign himself to the idea of living in this in-between, in this permanent hesitation, in this constant feeling of not belonging anwhere. Deep down, he felt it was his fault that he had to go through this. And this weight was weighing more and more on his shoulders every day. He was so tired of life, emotionally and physically, that he only wanted one thing: to lie on the asphalt and let himself die.

Since he couldn't die a second time, he decided that the best way to spend time waiting for a miracle solution was to follow Lance everywhere in the hope of learning a little more. So he had been accompanying him on all his travels for a week. Today was Lance's first session in the theater, which ended much later than expected. Keith had thought he could finally rest, but that wasn't counting Lance's brain, which obviously never made the choices expected of him. The young man had led him to the small stone wall that bordered the flower beds of the school garden, from where he had pulled out a strange notebook, visibly hidden there in order to hide it from inquisitive eyes. Not the most sensible hiding place, Keith thought, given the number of students who passed by every day, some even going so far as to sit on it. But despite his opinion on Lance's ideas, he still decided to replace the stones that he had badly put back, wanting to go fast, while wondering why he was going to great lengths to help him. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be a brief, silent and inconsequential action caused a stone to fall a little too loudly, whose sound echoed for a few seconds in the empty courtyard.

Keith froze, one foot in the air. Lance, a few meters further on, did the same. If an outside observer had looked at the scene at that time, from the perspective of where he could have seen Keith, he would probably have thought they were in the middle of a red line, green line game. Then Lance turned around, his notebook kept close against his chest as if it could provide him some protection.

"Is there anyone?" he said in a voice that was not very confident.

The angel did not move a toe. If he was lucky, the other one would drop the case and go back to boarding school without any more questions.

"Hello? Someone?"

For Ezekiel's sake, he was stubborn! Patience had never been Keith's strong suit, and he was getting tired of making the statue. If it kept going like that, he was going to end up falling to the ground.

"I know you're there. Show yourself! I order you to show yourself!"

Choking a swearword, Keith finally put his foot on the ground, unable to hold a second more in balance. Scared by the noise, Lance started screaming, which probably woke up the neighbours for about ten kilometers. The angel looked up at him. Despite all the hatred he had for humans in general, he could not help but feel a wave of protective instinct passing through him at the sight of Lance, who stood in front of him with the head of a deer trapped in the headlights of a car.

"I-I-I-I know how to do karate!" he stuttered," Come, if you dare!"

Keith leaned his head, curious. For a few seconds now, Lance's gaze hasn't left his face, as if he... No, it was stupid, he couldn't see him, it was impossible. And yet, the young man's blue sloes were fixed on his face

"Can you see me?" he asked, incredulous.

The stiffening of Lance's body no longer left any doubt: he had heard it. Keith opened his mouth again, not knowing what to say. A wave of opposing feelings overwhelmed him. He felt both happy and relieved that someone was finally hearing him, after all these calls for help. At the same time, he felt ashamed that he had wanted so desperately that people would realize his presence. And now he didn't know what to do. Did he just screw up the whole mission? What was he going to do now that Lance knew about it? Again, it was doubt and fear that took over his other feelings. Would he be up to the challenge of this new challenge?

" What are you?" asked Lance.

Before Keith could even think about what he was going to say, he raised his hand, as if to prevent him from speaking.

"No no no no no no, don't tell me you're a human, I wouldn't believe you. You literally shine. No one does that. Not even me, and yet you can't say I'm taking it easy on the highlighter. Are you an alien? I've seen conspiracy documentaries, you know. I wouldn't turn you in, I swear I won't!"

In spite of him, the angel rolled his eyes. He had been talking to him for barely two minutes and already the Cuban was getting on his nerves. The irritation pushed him to answer the truth, which was not what he had originally planned.

"An angel", he replied. "Your guardian angel."

Lance's eyes widened under the surprise. Despite his statement earlier, he obviously did not expect an answer like this. He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow, all fear forgotten.

"Guardian Angel", he repeated. "So, are you supposed to keep me from failing my life or something? Excuse me, but so far, you can't say you've been very helpful."

Keith crossed his arms, this time quite irritated. If for a fallen angel he was not devoid of virtues, patience was certainly not one of them.

"Oh, yeah? Well, forgive me, but maybe if you didn't do stupid things in the first place, you wouldn't be here!"

Lance made an offended cry.

"I'm trying to do the best I can! And I don't have super angel powers to fix everything, unlike you!"

"If I had any powers, I'd be happy to use them to help you, the problem is that they're gone!"

With this last tirade, he had raised his arms in the air in an exaggerated way. When he realized that the other did not answer immediately, he lowered them, ashamed of his anger. It was all him, giving himself so much to the point of not realizing to what he was doing. He knew it, though: he had always been the kind of person to get excited before he even knew why. In paradise, it had often earned him disapproving looks. Obviously, an angry angel was not good with the whole idea of the patience and purity they were trying to convey.

"Disappeared? You mean you truly had some before?"

If the school lights didn't light Lance's face, Keith was sure that he would have lit the night by himself. His eyes had suddenly enlarged, curious, and his neck stretched towards the angel as if he was trying to determine what kind of power he might have had.

"I had some in... Before."

He couldn't get the word "paradise" out of his lips. It sounded too fake, too perfect.

"And why don't you have them any more?"

His first reaction was to stand up, but Lance didn't want to hurt him. His question was sincere and it even seemed.... Sorry? Compassionate? Keith didn't know how to handle this kind of reaction. He was used to contempt, to pity, but not to people being really interested to the point of being touched. Empathy was not something that was usually addressed to him. And he was completely lost. On the one hand, he would almost have preferred to continue the fight. At least he knew what was expected of him in this case.

"Good question," he replied in a tone drier than he really wanted." I'm still trying to find out, believe it or not. Except I have to take care of you, and it's not easy since you have the judgement of an eight-year-old child!"

The expression of pain on Lance's face affected him much more than he expected. He felt a little better having expressed all the frustration of the last seven days and having returned to a field he had mastered, anger, but he could not help but feel a pinch in his heart when the Cuban pinched his mouth with contempt and took on a jaded look, any trace of his compassion vanished. Deep down, Keith had hoped things would turn out differently. If he hadn't been so antisocial, so hotheaded, maybe he would have known how to react, and he wouldn't have had to use anger to hide the too many doubts that were overwhelming him. But since he was Keith, the lone wolf, unable to communicate with others, he relied on what he could do best: get carried away.

"I beg your pardon?," Lance exclaimed. "And how exactly do you take care of me? You're just a teenager like me, except you shine, and I don't see how that helps you babysit me!"

Keith clenched his fists. He felt the adrenaline of the fight flowing through his veins, and for the first time in weeks, he finally felt alive. So why couldn't he fully appreciate things?

"You're right, I don't even see why I bother following you around! I was hoping you could help me with something, but you can't do anything but make a fool of yourself and flirt with every female person you meet!"

"Well, since I'm disturbing you, I don't see why you're still here! Go, I'm not holding you back!"

"Perfect!"

"Perfect!"

Both out of breath, they looked into each other's eyes for a few minutes, then the Cuban made a disapproving noise and turned his heels, his notebook under his arm, leaving Keith alone in the middle of the lawn. As soon as the boarding school door slammed, the angel sat on the floor and brought his knees against his forehead while he took a breath. He still couldn't realize what had just happened. He might have thought it was only an effect of his imagination, if his ears were not still buzzing with Lance's shouts. He had a strong voice, that was for sure.

Once his breath was restored, he stretched out on the grass, his head turned towards the sky. There was too much light pollution to distinguish the stars, but Venus was still visible, breaking away between the grey clouds. One thing led to another, he let his thoughts wander towards the Elysium. Was it really a kingdom in heaven, or was it just a traditional name? Could there be a whole country up there, invisible, that would float in the air? Keith had trouble believing in something so phantasmagorical, and yet, he was coming from it. The Paradise... Nothing more than an illusion that served to mask misery. Keith had been in this paradise, and it seemed like hell to him. But again, maybe it was just his fault, and he wasn't good enough to enjoy the place in all its glory. He was always wondering why that was where he had landed, and why not directly to the Underworld or to the Fields of Asphodel. So the Angels hated him so much for forcing him to feel inferior to everyone even after his death?

His death... Most of the time, he avoided thinking about it, but he knew he would have to deal with it at some point. He was not stupid: he did not consider his status as an angel as something that had always been so. If he had found himself in Heaven, it is because he had once been a human being, and he had died. According to his body, he couldn't have been more than twenty years old. And although his experience on Earth was limited, he knew that it was not at that age that we normally found ourselves in that state. So something had happened to him. Accident? Assassination? Perhaps his untimely death was the reason for his presence in heaven, and that when he came back here he was supposed to do something that would allow him to rest in peace.

He sighed for the hundredth time. All these questions had been on his mind since he arrived on Earth, and he was starting to have a hell of a headache. He needed to rest or he was going to go crazy. As Lance's balcony would obviously not be accessible to him tonight, he huddled on the grass and closed his eyes. Not being completely human, he felt neither cold, nor hunger or thirst, but strangely enough the desire to sleep was present. The prospect of having nightmares made him panic for a brief moment, then fatigue took over and he fell into a deep sleep.


End file.
